This summer, get your kids to turn off the Wii by enticing them with the opportunity to uncover a piece of history. The Museum of Western Colorado’s adventures put you and your kids (ages 5 and up) in the middle of a paleontological dig at the Mygatt-Moore Quarry, using real tools of the trade to look for dinosaur bones and teeth (along with those of turtles, lizards, and mammals). For science nuts, it’s a dream come true—exhuming fossils right in the middle of a site where more than 3,000 bones have been uncovered during the past 20 years.

For those who really want to dig in, the museum also coordinates five-day trips (with lodgings in nearby Fruita) that include one day of touring Colorado National Monument and surrounding areas of interest, followed by two days of digging, a gentle one-day rafting trip through the geologic wonders of Ruby and Horsethief Canyons, and a final day of learning how to make casts and collect plant and animal fossils.

Having a great time! “Within an hour of starting the dig, we were able to discern true fossils from basic rocks—not as easy as it sounds,” says Julianne Schwartz of Moraga. “The feeling of scraping away at these 65-million-year-old rocks is indescribable.”

-Sarah Mueller Bossenbroek

THE ONE-DAY DIG COSTS $99 AND THE FIVE-DAY DIG COSTS $999, INCLUDING LODGING, MEALS, AND EQUIPMENT. 888-488-3466, DINODIGS.ORG.